What Are You Reading Now.

"On the Sufferings of the World" -A. Schopenhauer

 

Veeck As In Wreck - Bill Veeck. A different kind of baseball book.

 

It's been some time since a series has hooked me into fervently wanting the next book and the next book rather than asking myself if this is all worth finishing. A little more than halfway way through this one. (this is #3 in the series)

 

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I have the first one in this series in my shopping cart on Amazon. I also have a gift card for Amazon that I haven't used because I'm not sure what I want to get.

Is the series that good?

 

Anyone know the Breen and Tozer series?

 

I certainly think it is. There's a brisk, almost military pace to the story-telling. It's clean and crisp and you learn as you go, not stopping to wallow in backstory or info-dump, ever. The characters are engaging and it's often the ancillary characters that really shine and propel the central characters along, which means there's always a good reason to meet them and get to know them. I have to admit that I saw the show first (The Expanse) and it hooked me. I love, love, love Shohreh Aghdashloo. She is simply the soul of elegance, and the fact that in this series she curses like a drunken sailor on shore-leave only makes her all the more awesome.



The show also introduced me to the Samoan actor Frankie Adams as GySgt. Roberta Draper. Again, it's like she has the power to cancel out my gayness.



I just love how she totally gets being a soldier, being a marine.

Anyway, yeah, the show hooked me; the books have drugged me into supplication.

 

This might be enough to convince me.

I had to put down the acclaimed Ancillary Justice because it was just too much back story and the story telling had an antiseptic quality to it that I couldn't get into.

 

So... six hours sitting around playing Hearts in an abandoned warehouse, then the Staff Sergeant says "What the hell are you idiots still doing here?" and you say "First Sergeant told us to stand by after lunch until he got the Word" and Staff Sergeant says "Shit, he went home three hours ago, get the fuck outta here, PT formation at 0630, green and green."

Don't think I'd read more....

 

Currently reading Pass Your Amateur Radio Technician Class Test The Easy Way! by Craig "Buck" K4LA.

It's quite clever actually, and since I only need the permit for some RC stuff, the fact that it's more of a test hack than an instructional book is irrelevant.

 

They really are great books.

 

I might check out this series. What's the series name as a whole?

 

Duma Key by Stephen King . I like it but good god it moves slow. I don't mind that somethings but latley I have been craving a read that has legs and is off from page one. Then, avoiding the blank page, I picked up American God by Neil Gaiman for a reread and looked through damn near anything my Jack Ketchum for his amazing prose.

 

I just finished Slan by A.E. van Vogt, by reputation a science fiction classic. It's annoyingly dumb. Van Vogt falls into a common trap: how do you write genius characters without being a genius yourself? Alas, he has no solution, and his MC is brilliant in this scene and dopey in the next, and on and on.

Also, van Vogt is a laughably bad prose stylist. I will chuckle myself to sleep playing back some of his sentences, such as, "He frowned mentally."

 

"He frowned mentally." I think I may have to tape that qoute to my wall. Anytime I feel like a hack I will look at it and go back to work...

 

I'm pretty sure it's going by the name "The Expanse" as regards searching for all the books in the series.

 

I have discovered the books of China Mieville. Halfway through Perdido Street Station.

 

He's amazing. The three Bas Lag novels are each very, very different.

 

Yes, it's "The Expanse". I am on Cibola Burn, but haven't had a chance to begin it yet. Life has gotten super hectic and I've been using my limited downtime to write instead of read. I would recommend the series, though.